March 8th, 2012
Posted by Mimi Wilfong

Easter Egg, noun

  1. An egg given to children at Easter, usually a chocolate egg or a hen’s egg with its shell painted.
  2. A message, graphic, sound effect or other behavior emitted by a program in response to some undocumented set of commands or keystrokes, intended as a joke or to display program credits.

Let’s talk about definition number 2. As it says, an Easter egg can take on one of many forms, but for our purposes today, we’ll talk about Easter eggs in the shape of “cool” things that some websites have been programmed to do, if you know how to ask. Oftentimes, these Easter eggs seem to have no purpose, offer no real value-add to the website and would leave a good, number-crunching businessperson wondering who made the decision to spend the time and money to develop the Easter egg. We’ll explore that thought further, but first, to fully understand Easter eggs, check out some of these (really cool) examples.

Google

Google is commonly known for its holiday doodles and other Easter eggs. For example, in December, when a user typed “let it snow” in the search box, snow flurries would begin to appear on screen. Google also sets up appropriate pranks: Last April Fool’s Day, they “released” Google Motion. Check out the video at https://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html.

Try some of these other Google eggs (you may need to turn off instant results in Google Search preferences):

  • Type “askew” in search.

  • Type “Google gravity” in the search box, then click I’m Feeling Lucky (and wiggle your mouse).

  • Type “Where is Chuck Norris” in the search box, then click I’m Feeling Lucky.

  • On the BuzzFeed.com home page, use the Konami code* (arrows: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A) to see what happens. http://www.buzzfeed.com/

Why?

So why would a brand or a company, with a limited budget, whose goal is to maximize profit, spend the money to make these little Easter eggs? They don’t drive sales. Google isn’t going to sell another ad unit based on its ability to help you find Chuck Norris. No one is going to be able to order a Mini Cooper if the website text is reversed. And the BiebFeed isn’t going to help BuzzFeed gain corporate partners.

It just doesn’t make much sense that they would spend the time, money and effort required to create little amusing distractions…does it?

The key here is that by creating the Easter eggs, by showing a little quirkiness and personality, the brands are connecting with people. When brands connect with people, they foster brand loyalty. Here at Click Here, we talk about brand affiliation in the context of “what club do you join when you become associated with our brand?” When brands connect with people by creating Easter eggs, the people who know about them become part of the “cool” club.

They’re on the inside.

In the know.

Pickin’ up what the brand is puttin’ down.

Those aware of the eggs know a little secret about the brand that not everyone knows, and just knowing that secret strengthens the relationship they have with the brand. Have you ever talked to someone who knows about In-N-Out Burger’s secret menu? Those people are brand evangelists – and they wear their “I know something you don’t know” badge proudly. They became that way because In-N-Out let them in on something that not many people knew about – just like online Easter eggs.

But building brand affiliation and personality is obviously more involved than building secrets. Brand personalities are just like people’s, in that their idiosyncrasy and uniqueness naturally speak to some people more than others. Some personalities make you believe the brand is an authority, is responsible and always makes the right choices. Others you connect with because you appreciate how much like you they are: they make mistakes, they have fun and they’re just real. Brands with these human personalities tend to quickly and easily connect with people. Trendwatching recently released a report about Flawsome brands – how some brands are embracing their quirks and in doing so, generating customer loyalty. Domino’s made the brand more human by pointing out its failings, and then allowed people to make a human “We all have flaws, bro, I’ll give you a second chance. And by the way, let’s be friends” connection.

Be Irrelevant to Maintain Relevancy

So what does this all mean? Consumers are more and more aware that personality and profit can be compatible. And with every business that succeeds while being reasonable, helpful, fun or human, consumers become increasingly more disenchanted by traditional, boring, impersonal brands. So in a sense, brands are doing things that are irrelevant to the business practice (like Easter eggs) to remain relevant in an environment where people are constantly scrutinizing brands, trusting them less and have more options than ever before.

*What’s the Konami code? It’s a cheat code that was originally designed for the Nintendo Entertainment System. If you didn’t know that, pat yourself on the back for being normal.

March 6th, 2012
Posted by Scott Luther

Facebook Brand Timelines – Six Big Changes
Stephanie Wierwille

Facebook Timeline for brands is here – and the changes are huge for how businesses engage with fans on Facebook. Beyond the aesthetic differences the new design brings to the table, there are several slightly more subtle changes that shake up the platform – like the appearance of apps, accessibility of tabs and a new opportunity for brands to communicate privately with fans.

Moving Away from “User Guessing” in E-Commerce
M. Les Boswell

All too often e-commerce leaders have had to make tough decisions regarding promotions, conversion tunnels and home page content. How does one personalize the experience? The data available to make this happen revolves around what the customer previously did on the site, as well as what they share and like – but beyond that, leaders have had to make informed guesses. All of that is changing, as marketers and e-commerce teams have more access to social data. The question now is, how does one take new data to create a personalized experience without it feeling invasive and, well, creepy?

Girl Scouts Bake M-Commerce into Cookie Mix
Nick Daigle

In an effort to curb flattening cookie sales and appeal to the plastic yet increasingly mobile wallet, 32 Girl Scout Councils in 23 states inked a partnership with Sage Mobile Payments to provide patrons with a way to pay with credit and debit cards. So instead of fumbling through cash-strapped wallets and turning the girls away because of insufficient funds, consumers hungry to support the organization could do so with one easy swipe. As for results of the new mobile payment method, 150 troops testing the platform experienced a 13% increase in cookie sales year over year.

How Much Does the Second Screen Relate?
Scott Luther

With 40% of smartphone and tablet owners turning to the smaller screen while watching television, networks and startups alike are scrambling to capture viewers’ attention on the second device. Self-reported behavior shows that second-screen viewers are checking email and social networks, both during show content and commercials, far more frequently than interacting with the show, leaving marketers to wonder, how much do these screens need to relate?

January 10th, 2012
Posted by Scott Luther

World’s First Facebook Timeline Campaign
Stephanie Wierwille

While Facebook Timeline has yet to be released for brand pages, marketers are already leveraging the new design to connect with consumers. The Israel Anti-Drug Authority and McCann Digital created a Facebook page for a fictional drug addict, using Timeline to explore the two different paths a life can take: the decline as an addict versus success in staying clean.

Consumer Media Usage Across TV, Online, Mobile and Social
Sarah Allen

Nielsen recently took stock of consumer media usage across channels, and the results show that TV ownership is still most prevalent. Get the basics on how many people own other devices and use the Web in the article or download the full report.

IKEA Invites Facebook Group for a Sleepover
Scott Luther

After discovering a Facebook group called “I Wanna Have a Sleepover in Ikea” with nearly 100,000 fans, an IKEA store in Essex created a program where members could compete to be one of 100 people invited for a sleepover in the store. With product experts on hand, participants not only got a chance to roam the giant store after hours, they had a chance to test out the mattresses in action.

Do Social Media Postings Always Require a Brand Response?
Nick Daigle

Social media has birthed the age of customer-to-customer relationship management. When a question or complaint goes unanswered, other potential and current customers can make a decision from that lack of dialogue. And while customers say they are most likely to engage a brand for promotions, deals and discounts, they cited customer service as more important, according to the Conversocial study, ”The Consequences of Ignoring Your Customers.”

Wireless Bandwidth Dominated by Top Users
Mimi Wilfong

According to research firm Arieso, the top 10% of wireless users are consuming 90% of bandwidth. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of top offenders were utilizing 3G bandwidth to connect a laptop to the Web, followed by a third of users with smartphones, and just 3% were using tablets. Who’s responsible for the statistical gap? Europe, the United States and South Africa.

Word-of-Mouth, Consumer Reviews and Social Media Influence
Jill Krumsick

Ninety percent of people believe brand recommendations from friends. Products that have more than 50 reviews experience 65% higher returns than products with less than five reviews. Users are 71% more likely to purchase when referred by social media. Check out this infographic to see more staggering stats on the importance of word-of-mouth and inbound marketing.

December 20th, 2011
Posted by Scott Luther

Facebook to Launch Mobile Ads in Early 2012
Jill Krumsick

Facebook expects its next one billion users to mainly visit the network via a mobile device next year, so the brand is focusing on its mobile experience. Expect to see ads in your mobile Facebook experience in the next few months.

Procter & Gamble’s Mobile Coupon Strategy Reveals Broken System
Scott Luther

Procter & Gamble, a major packaged goods company, has partnered with small technology firm Mobeam to develop a mobile couponing system that addresses one of the last hurdles to adoption – redemption. Current mobile coupons are easily distributed and collected, but cannot be scanned through most POS barcode scanners. Mobeam’s solution could be available as early as 2012, taking the $3.7 billion coupon market to mobile.

Tablet Computers: The Must-Have for What Age Group?
Mimi Wilfong

Forty-five percent of this age group has downloaded more than 10 apps in the last year. Thirty-three percent of this age group has read QR codes on their smartphones, and 35% of them download movies from Netflix or other streaming providers. What age group is it? One more hint: They WERE Woodstock. Don’t underestimate the tech-savvy Boomers.

Your Life on Facebook, in Total Recall
Sarah Allen

Facebook rolled out Timeline to all of its users this Thursday. This profile option has been available in beta form to developers. Timeline makes a user’s entire history of photos, links and other things shared on Facebook accessible with a single click. For advertisers, the Timeline feature potentially offers a new way to target users.

December 14th, 2011

The Grid System in action

Most everyone who ever went to school for commercial advertising learned the Grid System, a basic design convention where all elements on a page line up with each other on an invisible grid, much like a newspaper layout. Of course, designing completely on a grid was not a hard-and-fast rule, so it was easy to break out of, and with a static delivery system (like print), it was simple to do.

Then came a new medium with its nonstandardized viewing platform: the Internet. The first commercially viable programming language required that everything be placed in tables – essentially a grid – and designers spent a great deal of energy trying to create sites that did not reflect their boxy underpinnings. Viewing variables became a consideration, mainly how different browsers would display a site and what size monitor the majority of viewers had. A maximum build size was adopted and ad units became standardized. Site design became more complex and, in some cases, convoluted.

There has been a resurgence of late to simpler design with clear messaging. From a user’s perspective, this simplicity prevents a bombardment of messages and competing links. Used correctly, a grid design can be calming and self-assured. Navigation is clear and users can easily find their way around the site without feeling overwhelmed. Images can take center stage and users quickly receive the site’s message.

Now marketers are confronted with an even more varied viewing platform. Monitors, laptops, tablets and smartphones guarantee no standard size will accommodate all audiences. Many companies are building separate sites for each major platform, which may not be a viable solution for all.

A modern grid system has been re-created and updated to solve this dilemma.

A site built in boxes that can be fixed or flexible is often referred to as a fluid grid, and the practice itself is called reactive design. As different devices access the site, it resizes or reorganizes to fit the available space. In some cases, the boxes will change size. In others, the boxes will shift in layout with each box assigned an order of priority for display so the content is always positioned in priority of importance. See the two figures at right for an example of the same site displayed at different browser sizes.

A site built on the flexible fluid grid will display properly on almost any screen resolution without plug-ins, subdomains or mobile-specific URLs, giving the experience consistency and cohesion without requiring the building of multiple sites. Sites are created in a framework using variable boxes that can reorganize or resize based on the size of the browser window. This grid layout can be quite complex or deceptively simple.

This evolution in web design is because of the new CSS3 specifications that allow designers to take advantage of media queries. This effectively allows browsers to detect both the screen resolution of the user and the maximum screen width to determine if the user is viewing in landscape or portrait, and then apply the appropriate style sheet. The same single site for mobile, tablet and web devices means that when a user shares a page with a friend, they are seeing the same content, rather than a filtered, watered-down mobile version of the website.

No matter how the Grid System is implemented – flexible or fixed – it imparts a sense of order to the user. In what can be the Wild West, a harmonious structure with intuitive navigation can be a welcome respite.

Image References

http://www.thegridsystem.org/

http://christmas.biltmore.com/#/night

http://www.zackgrossbart.com/slidegrid/

December 13th, 2011
Posted by Scott Luther

Twitter Joins Facebook, Google, Launches “Brand Pages” for Marketers
Sarah Voges

Twitter has unveiled a comprehensive redesign that includes brand pages for advertisers. The pages will allow brands to display logos more prominently, let them “pin” tweets to the top of their timeline and have selected tweets automatically expand to display YouTube clips or other content, among other features. The network announced 21 initial brand partners, with more pages from nonprofits and individuals said to be upcoming.

TV, Mobile See Gains in Viewing Time
Stephanie Wierwille

U.S. adults now spend more time with mobile than print magazines and newspapers combined, but are watching more and more traditional TV. Time spent with the Internet and mobile phones is up by 7.7% and 30%, respectively, while watching TV and video on a traditional television set is up by ten minutes from last year. While TV is getting its fair share of ad dollars, the ad dollars allocated to mobile are far less than mobile’s share of adults’ media time each day.

Google Expands Content Distribution with Currents
Scott Luther

This week Google has released its long-rumored social magazine service for Android, iPad and iPhone with more than 150 content partners offering full-length editions through its platform. This service aims directly at social news services like Zite and Flud, but at launch has only a limited integration with Google+ while not integrating at all with Twitter or Facebook.

Who Uses Tablets Most?
Alex Kenney

eMarketer’s estimate of U.S. tablet users shows that nearly 11% of the U.S. population uses a tablet at least once per month, with the highest penetration among Hispanics and Asian-Americans. Spanish-speaking Hispanics have the highest aspirational intent for tablets, with 41% planning to have one within the next year.

Record Online Sales This Holiday
Jill Krumsick

‘Tis the season for e-commerce! The latest holiday tracking reports are in, and spending is up 15% over last year, reaching $25 billion. And with Green Monday and free shipping week coming up, the 2011 holiday is shaping up to be a record-breaking season.

November 28th, 2011
Posted by Jeff Hodgson

If there’s one toy that truly captures imaginations and encourages creativity, it’s LEGO®. Sure, the simple building blocks have become more complex over the years, adding lots of new pieces, characters and even electric motors, but the fundamentals remain the same. Give two people the same bricks and tell them to make something, and you’ll most likely end up with two vastly different creations. You’ll probably also have two very entertained people.

Today, LEGOs have found a new way to amuse. Go ahead and search “LEGO” on YouTube. Then sift through the almost 500,000 videos. A few of the videos are commercials and video game trailers, but the majority of them are made by people who just love LEGOs or see them as a powerful storytelling tool. I’ve compiled a few of my favorites.

First, let’s watch the first level of Super Mario Bros. created with LEGOs. Full disclosure, LEGOs and Super Mario Bros. are two of my favorite things. Ever. So combining them automatically gets them the first spot.

Next up, we’ve got a video of a felt-tip printer created with LEGOs. This might be one of the nerdiest LEGO videos I’ve seen, which is saying a lot. But it’s also one of the coolest.

There are so many more awesome LEGO videos I’d like to share, but time and space won’t allow it. Other favorites you can look up on your own include The White Stripes music video for “Fell in Love With a Girl” and a kid telling the entirety of the original Star Wars trilogy in a little over two minutes.

Finally, I’d like to share the video that inspired this post in the first place.

This new LEGO product, called the Life of George, brilliantly brings LEGO further into the Internet age. It’s the first interactive game combining building things with real LEGO bricks and an app for iPhone or iPad. As far as I know, no other “old” toy has melded the physical and digital so well. In my opinion, the genius of it is that LEGO didn’t mess with the original in an attempt to make a cool app. They stood by the fact that building things in real life is way more fun than faking it on a screen, yet added the best of digital to make it social and engaging in a totally different way. Other brands would be smart to take note of LEGO’s success and build apps that integrate their real-world product in a new and interesting way.

As a side note, I still have two VERY large tubs of LEGOs at home. I have no intention of ever getting rid of them, because at this rate, LEGOs will never become obsolete.

September 12th, 2011
Posted by Amanda Plewes

I had a nightmare last night. I went to ABrandIManage’sName.xxx to find a pornographic parody of our brand. I woke up in a cold sweat. Given the discourse online this week about the opening of the new .xxx domain, I don’t think I’m the only one having nightmares about adult content on a site resembling our G-rated brand’s.

Luckily, ICM Registry, the company managing the opening of this domain, has recognized that brands are not going to have a warm, fuzzy feeling about this and has provided a way to “opt out” of the domain. Registration opened for this opt-out period last week and will last until October 28.

What Can My Brand Do to Be Blocked?
If you want to prevent yourbrand.xxx, you can apply to protect your trademark on this domain.

If your brand purchases many domains but doesn’t necessarily own the trademark for those brand terms, you cannot apply to block the domain during the Sunrise B application period. You must own the trademark for all domains preregistered during the opt-out period.

In your application, you must provide the following information:
• Trademark Name
• Trademark Registration Number: The registration number for your trademark.
• Nation Code: The country where your trademark was registered.
• Trademark Registration Date: The date your trademark was registered.
• Trademark Ownership: Your relation to the trademark: Owner or Assignee.

The application fee is $199.99 and is nonrefundable. If approved, the block on your domain will be in place for 10 years and you will not have to pay an annual renewal fee.

Further, this block means that no one else will be able to purchase the domain and there will be nothing on the site. There will also be data entered in the WHOIS registry so that your brand is not tied directly to ownership of this domain.

Should I Apply for This?
It’s up to you. I’ve been recommending it to my clients as a risk-management move. During the Sunrise B application period, we have the ability to prevent any problems from emerging. While it’s a cost now, the cost to protect the trademark now is likely far less than it will be to mitigate any problems that arise in the future if the trademark hasn’t been protected.

If you’ve ever tried to buy a domain name that’s already owned by someone else, you know how difficult and costly it is to try to buy it – even if it’s someone cybersquatting on one of your trademarked terms.

Some online pundits are claiming that this essentially amounts to cyber-extortion because brands are being held hostage to pay to protect trademarked names they legally own. Whether you want to pursue legal action on any squatters rather than purchase the opt-out is for you and your legal counsel to talk through.

The Final Word
As a brand steward, talk through this with your team and decide the best course of action for your brand. But don’t put this too far on the back burner – brands only have until October 28 to make the decision to apply for an opt-out.

August 30th, 2011
Posted by Alex Kenney

As with other recent large-scale events, Hurricane Irene’s trip up the East Coast this weekend caused millions of people to turn to digital to keep up to date on the situation. With no public transportation available in New York City and not even an open Starbucks around (two things previously unimaginable to most New Yorkers), social media users became even more active to occupy and entertain themselves during days of hibernation.

There was no shortage of websites to visit for hurricane information. The National Hurricane Center site and Weather.com were among the most credible, offering current advisories, satellite photos and wind speed and storm surge projections. Other sites were much more specialized, such as this interactive map from WNYC public radio, which shows evacuation zones and evacuation centers after Mayor Bloomberg ordered mandatory evacuations for more than 250,000 people in coastal and low-lying areas.

One obviously beneficial use of digital, and specifically social media, throughout the storm was that it provided a way to get quick and easy information, whether that be from friends and family or government officials. Twitter saw more than 3,000 tweets per minute by 2 p.m. on Saturday about the storm, and seven of its top ten trending topics were hurricane-related posts. Governors of both New York, Andrew Cuomo, and New Jersey, Chris Christie, used Twitter throughout the weekend to update residents on the status of the storm and promote other media appearances.

However, the flip side is that a lot of misinformation was distributed, which serves to remind us that the source of the tweet always needs to be taken into account when deciding what to believe. An image of Hurricane Irene approaching North Carolina was circulating around early Saturday morning and shared by thousands of people, only to later uncover that the image was weeks old, taken in Florida and had nothing to do with Irene. By Sunday night, the fake picture had over 315,000 views.

But overall, the trend is that people are increasingly turning to social media when facing potential or current disasters. A survey by the American Red Cross reported that 18% of Americans use Facebook to get information about emergencies, and 24% would use social tools to tell others that they’re safe. Not unlike their expectations of brands and advertisers, 80% expect emergency responders to monitor social sites, and more than one-third expect help to arrive within one hour of posting a need to a social media site. And for those lucky enough to have avoided serious damage from the storm, social media also became a channel to express relief – and in true New York fashion, that relief was often articulated through humorous sarcasm.

And where were advertisers through all this? Some brands that had a natural fit within the conversation inserted their voice nicely, where relevant, through social media. As people flocked to the nearest retailer for flashlights, generators and water, The Home Depot connected with consumers in many ways, including providing a how-to guide for homeowners preparing for the hurricane. Walmart linked to a checklist of items consumers should have on hand via Twitter, and Lowe’s distributed a press release so all store managers were prepared to field any media inquiries and interviews to provide tips and demonstrations on hurricane prep and recovery. Other brands that did not have as seamless a connection posted their sympathies or tied the weather to something relevant to their brand, such as this Nike Facebook post on Monday:

All of these well-done social media efforts made me notice the brands that were not mentioning the incident, and it made me very much appreciate those who were being relevant in real time. All in all, another good case study for how social media continues to play a paramount role in large-scale events everywhere.

August 28th, 2011
Posted by Click Here

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has announced his retirement from Apple. This visionary led a brand that impacted our digital lives in a way few brands can exalt. Let’s recount some ways Apple, and Mr. Jobs, raised the bar.

Innovation

Nick Shultz put it nicely, “Lots of ninnies can give customers products they want. Jobs gave people products they didn’t know they wanted, and then made those products indispensable to their lives.” Apple has changed our game many, many times. Let’s take a look.

  • Music – Sure, the iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player when it hit the market in 2001, but it was the most impactful – the product family enjoys over 70% of the total MP3 player market share. And then there was the introduction of iTunes that brought forth the first legitimate digital music marketplace. Together, these revolutionized the music industry. In 2010, CDs accounted for less than half of total music sales, while downloads were up to about one-third.
  • Smartphones – In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone, revolutionizing smartphone technology with touchscreen capabilities and a satisfying mobile web experience, bolstering widespread adoption of smartphones. And a year after the iPhone came the App Store, which changed the way we think about software and democratized development opportunities.
  • Tablets – In 2010, Apple pioneered the tablet craze, bridging the gap between laptop computing and smartphone access. As the industry scrambles to bring competition to the game, Apple enjoys over 70% tablet market share.

Design

Apple is known for its design aesthetic, for its unique ability to create sleek, intuitive, user-friendly products. Adrian Shaughnessy said “He made computing sexy. In a world of Dells and Microsofts, Apple products were always designed for use by real people….Apple’s (and therefore Jobs’s) greatest contribution to design has been the elegance and simplicity of the tools they provide designers with. What I like best about Apple products…is the constant sense of improvement and refinement: a tireless search for simplicity and purity.”

Branding

Considered to be one of the best commercials ever, the “1984” Apple Olympics spot announced a new computer – but really a brand – that would change our expectations, the way we think about technology and, ultimately, the way we behave with technology. And almost 30 years later, this message still holds true of the brand. Strong brands are consistent, and Apple’s message is unwavering. Apple’s marketing continues to renew itself, entertain and delight users, but always reinforces the brand promise.

For a brand that has never had considerable market share in its initial category of personal computers, their innovation, design and branding capabilities paved the way in music, smartphones and now tablets. With COO Tim Cook stepping into Jobs’ job, Apple is set for a new era. But expect the brand to stay the course – product design is covered through 2015, Cook has been acting CEO since before Jobs’ sick leave and Steve is expected to still be involved with the brand he built. Best of luck Cook, and job well done Jobs.